What are the chances that the Obama administration will do what Roosevelt did in the 1930s, and via an executive order, make it illegal to "hoard" gold?

From Wikipedia:

'Executive Order 6102 is an Executive Order signed on April 5, 1933, by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt "forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates within the continental United States". The order criminalized the possession of monetary gold by any individual, partnership, association or corporation.'

The government set a fixed price for gold, seized all gold at that price and then changed the price and revalued the US currency as a result. They did this to stimulate the economy during the Great Depression, as hoarding was being blamed for a stagnation of other investments that would stimulate the economy.

What is the chance of history repeating itself? The government could turn a huge profit, very quickly again using this method. Some have speculated that the amount of gold being privately held in the US exceeds the amount currently at Fort Knox.

you do know that the gold standard has been abandoned for a good 40 years now, don't you?

Who said anything about the gold standard?

The government could use the gold to sell offshore for credit - whether the USA is on the gold standard or not makes no difference, gold is still used between countries for credit transfer. China for example is currently in the market for 7000 tonnes of gold.

I'd say there's a danger of them doing just that sort of ridiculous stuff with the way the deficit is at the moment.

the gold standard was the very reason why people were prohibited from hoarding gold at that particular time in the first place

Read your history again. The government seized gold and then adjusted the selling price purely to raise money. It was no more than a blatant grab of billions of dollars from legal investments.

They raised the price from $23 to $35 after completing the seizure. My grand parents lost hundreds of thousands as we were one of those hedging inflation during the Depression who had invested heavily in gold and silver.

The government could use the gold to sell offshore for credit - whether the USA is on the gold standard or not makes no difference, gold is still used between currencies for credit transfer. China for example is currently in the market for 7000 tonnes of gold.

I'd say there's a danger of them doing just that sort of ridiculous stuff with the way the deficit is at the moment.

who said anything about the gold standard? seriously? are you saying we should see Roosevelt's gold hoarding ban isolated from the economic reality of the early 30s?

why some people insist on debating stuff they don't know the first thing about on here eludes me

Read your history again. The government seized gold and then adjusted the selling price purely to raise money. It was no more than a blatant grab of billions of dollars from legal investments.

They raised the price from $23 to $35 after completing the seizure. My grand parents lost hundreds of thousands as we were one of those hedging inflation during the Depression who had invested heavily in gold and silver.

it was an effort to get people to spend their money instead of going out on bank runs to exchange it for gold to store at home, where it does nothing for an already flailing economy

What are the chances that the Obama administration will do what Roosevelt did in the 1930s, and via an executive order, make it illegal to "hoard" gold?

From Wikipedia:

'Executive Order 6102 is an Executive Order signed on April 5, 1933, by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt "forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates within the continental United States". The order criminalized the possession of monetary gold by any individual, partnership, association or corporation.'

The government set a fixed price for gold, seized all gold at that price and then changed the price and revalued the US currency as a result. They did this to stimulate the economy during the Great Depression, as hoarding was being blamed for a stagnation of other investments that would stimulate the economy.

What is the chance of history repeating itself? The government could turn a huge profit, very quickly again using this method. Some have speculated that the amount of gold being privately held in the US exceeds the amount currently at Fort Knox.

I am going to point out times were different then.
First and for most we were on the gold standard. The amount of gold the US goverment hand directly controlled the amount of money that was allowed to be out there. Hording gold meant that less money the goverment could have out standing and in circulation.
If memory services me for every dollar of gold people traded their dollar for meant the goverment had pull out over $2.00 in circulation. The hording was causing a massive shortage of dollars in the economy and pulling more and more out.

We are no longer on the gold standard so this is a non issue now days.
But never mind those little facts getting in the way of spreading FUD.

I would say it is pretty to very low, although it's not out of the question, whether it be Obama or another president. The economy would need to be a lot worse and and it may require a current or looming armed conflict that involves most of the military resources of the US. Many private citizens are holding gold and silver bullion today for obvious reasons...

For those saying that it is completely out of the question, I would have said that myself a few years ago...but that was before the Patriot Act and NDAA...and under those acts, it could theoretically be 'justified' "in interests of national security". Unlikely and while it isn't something that I am going to lose sleep over, I wouldn't say completely impossible.

Many private citizens are holding gold and silver bullion today for obvious reasons...

Actually, I think the number of people holding PMs today is much lower than it was during the depression. If they do hold them, its most likely in an ETF like GLD which can easily be seized if, indeed, there is any gold there to seize.

who said anything about the gold standard? seriously? are you saying we should see Roosevelt's gold hoarding ban isolated from the economic reality of the early 30s?

No, i'm saying that the gold standard is not required for the government to want to confiscate your assets.

I'm fully aware of the history of the gold standard.

And the economic problems your country faces right now are larger in scale than the depression years of the 1930s. They just haven't fully hit yet because the government has been trying to print their way out of it, but this is just delaying the inevitable and making the scale of the problem larger.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eraserhead

So if they lost even $100,000 than means they lost ~$1.8 million in todays money, given the price only doubled that means they had today's equivalent of ~$3.5 million in gold at that time.

My heart bleeds for the unfairness of taxing the super rich.

The gold seizures were not about taxing the super rich.

It was about robbing the population of their savings, to take the hit for government economic mismanagement. However much they had.

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA, Pub.L. 95-128, title VIII of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1977, 91 Stat. 1147, 12 U.S.C. § 2901 et seq.) is a United States federal law designed to encourage commercial banks and savings associations to help meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.

Congress passed the Act in 1977 to reduce discriminatory credit practices against low-income neighborhoods, a practice known as redlining.

The Act instructs the appropriate federal financial supervisory agencies to encourage regulated financial institutions to help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered, consistent with safe and sound operation (Section 802.) To enforce the statute, federal regulatory agencies examine banking institutions for CRA compliance, and take this information into consideration when approving applications for new bank branches or for mergers or acquisitions (Section 804.)